Socialism does not mean shared poverty

'It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, a long as it catches mice'. ~ Deng Xiaoping

管它黑貓白貓，會抓老鼠的就是好貓

An oft quoted line from the Chinese premier, translations of the saying try sometimes to convey the positive view of the statement with an addition, 'it is a good cat'. Whatever the translation, the idea is there and the cat is good no matter what colour it is.

I can understand the school not going for Deng's other percieved famous quote ( which it is not confirmed he said), 'To get rich is glorious'. This may have not been the message a school of public policy would have liked to transmit!

However the quote has been notorious for pragmatists since the time it was uttered. Deng can be seen as the father of modern pragmatism in China, and especially in the Communist party. His credentials were never in doubt - he was a veteran of the Long March -but he was purged twice due to internal struggles with Chairman Mao. However upon Mao's death, he outmanuvoered Mao's chosen successor Hua Guofeng - and thus came to have free rein in policy for the Middle Kingdom. Deng was confronted with a poor country, still reeling from the Cultural Revolution and man made famine in the 1950s. Deng was aware of the policys that has caused this pain - he had fought against many of them - and thus understood what had caused such heartache.

With influence from other communist policies ( such as Lenin's New Economic Policy in Russia), Deng began to elucidate the one which he thought best fitted the nations - that of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. He argued that 'Socialism and market capitalism are not incompatiable', and another type of planned economy is to control the market through capitalist mechanisms. This smacked of 'rightism' to many of his contempories but he retorted, ' Socialism does not mean shared poverty' and with his policies urged ' Let some people get rich first'. Thus he created the economic model which we see in China today. Deng would travel south and witness Kuala Lumpur and Singapore firsthand and realised the great cities in China lagged far behind. He was therefore committed to pushing through reforms, and when he finally left office and lost influence, his pragmatic view of the revolution lifted millions out of poverty and put China on the road to growth and progress which they have maintained to this day.

Thus pragmatically speaking, if you have mice it doesn't matter if it is a dog that caught. However can we thus so simply agree with this statement as public policy students? I will phrase what he stated in different policy scenarios - for example - It doesnt matter what lever of government brings forward a new policy, if it works it is a good policy - it doesnt matter doesnt matter how the economy gets fixed, as long as the economy is fixed it is a good policy. The problem with the statement that we are presented with is its ambiguity - it can be used by tyrants and policymakers alike.

So is Deng bordering on the Machiavellian quote, ' The end justifies the mean'. To put it that far would be a disservce to Deng. What is probbaly nearer to the true meaning and idea behind the quote is probably more, there is many adequate ways to solve the problem, as long as you use them to solve the problem. Therefore when Deng allowed Special Economic Zones, he realised he would lift up many out of poverty intially and eventually the prosperity of the few would trickle down to the many. He therefore took the pragmatic views that their was many ways to do this, and none should be ruled out due to political views, within reason.

It is not known whether Deng owned cats, so confirmation on whether he really believed his statments will remain one of the mysteries of history.